[kokosas]

Surviving Your Room Mates Part Two: The Problem with Chores

BY SABRINA KOKOSAREVIC, MACINSIDERS

When I was in high school my mom nagged me to do my chores. I hated it, but I did it… if I didn't I wouldn't be going out with my friends. What I didn't realize then is that all that time that I spent doing chores would one day foster in me a need for basic hygienic cleanliness. I learned how to dust properly, vacuum, mop, do dishes, wash laundry (both by hand for delicates and use the machine) and very importantly, how to cook for myself.

Myriads of students come into university not even knowing how to use the

washing machine let alone clean house and cook for themselves. This is something that feeds the often too true stereotype that students are pigs. Let's face it; there is nothing more disgusting than a typical student kitchen.

So why is this the case with so many student homes? Personally, I believe it to be pure and simple laziness. Granted, there are those who have parents that did everything for them and were never actually taught. But if you're capable of getting into university you should be capable of learning how to do basic daily life activities like using a vacuum, a washing machine, or the stove. It really isn't that hard.

The fact of the matter is that university is a way station, of sorts, to the elusive adulthood that we heard so much about as kids. I was once told by a housemate of mine that university was a pit stop to adulthood, a place to have a good time and put off being an adult. This true to an extent, everyone should have fun in university, but there’s a level of responsibility to be had as well—part of which is outside the classroom. If you can walk around a kitchen and have food crumbs stick to the bottom of your bare feet and say that it doesn't bother you then perhaps you should reassess your priorities.

What many of these messy students don't realize (or simply don't care about) is that by not wiping down the counter after you finish cooking, or washing your hands after you take the garbage out, or vacuuming up the dirt that gets dragged into the house you're allowing bacteria and germs to set up shop in your house. Things like countertops, stoves, floors, bathroom sinks, dishes, etc are known as fomites. As defined by the Merriam-Websters Online Dictionary a fomite is "an inanimate object (as a dish, toy, book, doorknob, or clothing) that may be contaminated with infectious organisms and serve in their transmission".

This means that by not cleaning up after yourself, an act that takes a few more minutes out of your day, you are spreading germs and bacteria around your house. Fomites are considered to be a significant step in the spread of respiratory and viral diseases because it is so easy for bacteria to transfer from a flat surface like your countertop to your hands which then touch your face. Granted this is a bit of a leap. I'm not saying that because you left crumbs on your counter from the toast you made this morning that you're going to get a respiratory disease and die. The point I'm trying to make is that things like bacteria and germs can become a bigger problem than what you anticipated. An act as common as not washing your hands can result in afflictions like pink eye, the common cold, staph infections and the flu.

One of the problems that may arise from a dirty home comes in the form of creepy crawlies with many legs that make some people stand on chairs and scream for someone else to "kill it!"

Insect infestations are a common side effect of a dirty house, especially in the spring and summer months. Insects come to live where there is ample food. Keeping a house clean helps prevent getting bugs like ants, centipedes, cockroaches, etc. Mice are often another side effect to having a dirty household and they are very difficult to get rid of. Once you have them you will find them eating through your boxes of cereal and leaving their droppings in your food storage areas and around the house. Not exactly a great time is it?

To see an article about how to deal with common household bugs click here.

Now as students, we're very busy. No one can deny that. But there are ways to make household chores less of a burden. Here are some quick tips:

1. Clean up immediately after you make the mess. If you spill something on the stove as you're cooking clean it up as best you can while the stove is hot, it dries and hardens as the stove cools. Be careful not to burn yourself, if you have to leave it till the stove is cool then so be it. Also, do your dishes as you cook; it will make it less of a chore when you're done your meal.

2. If you live in a house with several people split big chores up and share them. For instance: I live in a two level house. One person vacuums the top floor, and one person vacuums the bottom floor instead of someone doing both. Or in our kitchen, one person cleans countertops and stove while the other person sweeps and mops the floor. Doing a big chore by yourself can take you a while, this way you break it up and it is easier to manage. You may not have time for an hour of cleaning but you can spare 10-20 minutes.

3. Come up with a chore list for you and your room mates and STICK TO IT. Make sure the responsibilities rotate every week or so to keep it fair. Set rules and punishments for missing your chores, etc. All of you should agree to the rules that way if later on in the year someone does not comply you can bring up that you all agreed to it originally. Some punishments could be putting a quarter into a house jar and using that money to do a pizza night later in the year, or to replenish common house goods like toilet paper and dish soap. Use your imagination and come up with something that is fair and that everyone can agree on.

4. Assign your chores well in advance of expecting them to be completed. For example, assign them on Sunday night, to be completed by the next Sunday. That way all of your room mates have plenty of time to work their schedule around it. If they have a big assignment coming up they know well in advance what their chore expectations are going to be that week and to get a move on it if they're going to be busy. Don't use schoolwork as an excuse to get out of doing your part. Each of your room mates has a heavy workload of their own to contend with and if they can pull their weight so can you.

I understand that when you move in with people for the first time you're going to have several different personalities clashing. I speak from experience when I say that sometimes you're just going to want to bite your tongue and clean up after your housemates anyway. This will not work for long I assure you. I did it for an entire year and finally got sick of it. I ended up in a screaming match in my kitchen with one of my housemates whom I accused of being a complete and utter slob. It's not pretty guys.

Confrontations can be hard, especially when you have to live with that person but as the saying goes, you need to 'nip it in the bud' otherwise you will find yourself miserable and hating it when you walk in the door to a filthy home. Take my word for it and talk to your room mates if it starts to become a problem and try to make yourself understood with the least amount of accusations possible.

[lorend]

FOMITE! FOMITE! heh heh.

[temara.brown]

lol fomites



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fomite

[Chad]

I say cleaning dishes right after using them is the best way to go about things. Its hard to get accustomed to, but if you do it right after eating then there's never dishes in the sink.. and you only clean the ones you use and no one elses. Just have to get my housemates to do this *sigh*

[kokosas]

Yeah... my house is the same. One of my room mates thinks the place only needs to be cleaned twice and month and the other actually told me that stepping on crumbs and crap doesn't bother her.

The lesson here? Choose your room mates very wisely!